An Independent Patriots Blog
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66C1nmBJOEg&feature=youtu.be
Here’s Mike Petraglia (aka @Trags) and Jimmy Toscano discussing why the Eagles are a tough matchup for the Pats. Things sure don’t get any easier for Tom Brady, facing as tough a front as he’s seen all year and one that has insane depth with eight players who can all produce for the front four. We all know pressure with the front four is what it’s all about against the Patriots defense and the Eagles should cause plenty of problems.
Mike Reiss brought up one of the Patriots most impossible and infamous stats to Bill Belichick yesterday, that the Patriots had yet to score a point in the first quarter of any of their seven Super Bowl appearances. Belichick scoffed even though the players said last year he was all over them about getting off to a fast start against the Falcons, which of course did not happen.
For as remarkable as the Patriots’ dominance since the early 2000s has been to never have scored a point out of the gate is just as remarkable and it’s hard to even guess why. The team has run the gamut from a defense-first squad to an unstoppable offensive one, but it never made a difference. Here are the Pats’ overall stats from Super Bowl first quarters:
| Play Results | Play Type | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tm | G | Plays | ToGo | Yds | 1st% | TO% | TD | FG | 1D | Int | Fum | Sack | Pass | Rush | Punt | FG |
| NYG | 2 | 18 | 8.00 | 5.17 | 33.3% | .0% | 6 | 11 | 7 | |||||||
| PHI | 1 | 15 | 8.07 | 3.00 | 6.7% | .0% | 1 | 7 | 5 | 3 | ||||||
| SEA | 1 | 20 | 7.10 | 3.75 | 25.0% | 5.0% | 5 | 1 | 11 | 8 | 1 | |||||
| CAR | 1 | 19 | 9.11 | 4.68 | 15.8% | .0% | 3 | 9 | 7 | 2 | 1 | |||||
| STL | 1 | 11 | 7.36 | 4.55 | 18.2% | .0% | 2 | 5 | 4 | 2 | ||||||
| ATL | 1 | 17 | 9.24 | 4.24 | 23.5% | .0% | 4 | 2 | 10 | 5 | 2 | |||||
| Totals | 7 | 100 | 8.18 | 4.24 | 21.0% | 1.0% | 0 | 0 | 21 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 53 | 36 | 10 | 1 |
| Pct | 7% | 0% | 0% | 21% | 1% | 0% | 2% | 53% | 36% | 10% | 1% | |||||
[Read more…] about Patriots Super Bowl First Quarters vs. Fourth Quarters
In a thrilling comeback victory against the Jaguars, the Patriots advanced to their eight Super Bowl in the Brady-Belichick era, and are one win away from winning three out of four Super Bowls for a second time in this century alone. The Patriots were forced to rely on Brady’s fourth quarter heroics in a matchup that featured the Jaguars ferocious front seven completely shut down the Patriots run game. Dion Lewis, after averaging 142.3 yards from scrimmage in his past three games, was held to just 34 yards on the ground and 32 through the air. If you take away his 18 yard first down run that sealed the win, Lewis ran for just 16 yards on eight carries (2.0 YPC), a far cry from his season average of 5.0 YPC, which was second in the NFL among running backs.
Almost all of the offense had to come through Brady and the passing game, and while they delivered, the Patriots will need a better effort on the ground 11 days from now against Philadelphia. An interesting pattern that I discovered is that, when the Patriots (not including “runs” by Brady and Hoyer) rushed for 4.4 or more yards per carry in a game, the Patriots were 9-0 this season (including playoffs), and had an average point differential of +15.1 in those games. However, in the nine games when they rushed for less than 4.4 yards per carry, the Patriots were 6-3, and had an average point differential of +5.7. Of course, if there is one quarterback that can overcome a lack of success on the ground, it’s Tom Brady, as he is the only quarterback in NFL history to have a winning record in games in which he is forced to throw 50+ times (19-9, a .667 winning percentage).
[Read more…] about Breaking Down Patriots Run Game Struggles vs. Jags
Check out some of the latest tees I’ve partnered with Breaking T to produce. Yes, a Patriots Super Bowl run is happening AGAIN and Tom Brady is Thumbreakable! Plenty of more fun to come with these guys, along with my own designs available through the Prop Shop.
After a day of wonky performance by NFL Game Rewind I was finally able to get it to function long enough to take a look at the All-22 film from the AFC Championship. It’s always nice to get a clean strategic view of the game without my stomach turning after every bad Patriots play.
I came away even more impressed with how the Jags executed, especially early. But really from the start of the second half you could see the Patriots taking their game to another level while the Jags were slowly starting to fade as they got closer and closer to a potential win. It’s just remarkable how steady the Patriots are. Some of the late punts in the second half left an even bigger impression on me because most teams would’ve packed it in.
Aside from the Patriots perseverance it was clear that the flaws of the 2017 team were still very much there. And with Dion Lewis mostly ineffective until the final game-sealing carry, it’s just incredible what Brady did, almost exclusively with Danny Amendola.
Great play designs, great adjustments and an unflinching approach to the game were the hallmarks of this performance.
Here are a bunch of my quick-hit thoughts.
[Read more…] about Film Review: Pats vs. Jags AFC Championship
Here’s today’s hot-off-the-live-video-press episode of Patshow, our AFC Championship recap edition.Thank you to everyone who has supported Patshow this year! It’s grown at an incredible rate here in the last couple months and we hope we can continue to bring the fans the kind of show they’ve been clearly dying for. It’s our latest and greatest episode yet, we talk Jags, breakdown Danny Amendola’s clutch performance and answer a ton of viewer questions! Enjoy!!
As we all know, with the extra week before the Super Bowl there are a lot of pages that need to be viewed. A lot air time that needs to be shouted into. A lot of ‘Tomato Cans’ (read Straw Men) that Need Crushing. That usually means we get an insane, regurgitated, ALL CAPS version of the season’s scandals (unless they involve Peyton Manning’s wife chewing HGH like Pez). But this year, I think we will see something decidedly different. Before we look forward, let’s reflect on the media narratives going into the Patriots previous eight appearances:
[Read more…] about Coffin Corner: What Will This Year’s Shocking Super Bowl Narrative Be?
That’s the most badass looking walking boot I’ve ever seen.
